Tories will set agenda: Cameron

The Conservatives will treat 2008 as a year-long election campaign in a bid to restore public trust in the party, leader David Cameron has pledged.

Mr Cameron used his New Year's message to push his claim to offer a "clear and credible alternative to this hopeless and incompetent Labour government".

"I sense that Britain feels it's time for a change," he said, three months after Prime Minister Gordon Brown decided against calling a snap poll amid a dramatic Conservative poll revival.

Observers do no expect Mr Brown to go to the country now until at least 2009 but Mr Cameron insisted he would accelerate his bid to win the votes needed to seize power.

"I want 2008 to be the year in which we offer the people of this country the hope of real change, by setting out a clear and inspiring vision of what Britain will look like with a Conservative government," he said in the traditional annual message.

"There probably won't be a General Election this year but we will behave and work as though there is and in doing so prove that you can once again trust a Conservative government to take this country forward,"

"We must show from the very beginning of and throughout this year that we can set the agenda with our new thinking and clear understanding of what people want for themselves and their family."

Labour had shown itself to be "hopeless and incompetent", he said, pledging to stand up for the NHS in its 60th year against "yet more onslaughts from the Labour bureaucracy machine".

The Tories would offer "the hope of a decent education for every child" with radical reforms of the school system and a return to safer communities through police reform and more prison places.

He concluded: "My vision for Britain is clear: to give people more opportunity and power over their lives, to make families stronger and society more responsible, and to make Britain safer and greener."